Nokia Siemens Networks will keep its operations in Munich after the majority of its 2,000 employees based there accepted the company’s offer to join an "interim employment company".

Employees were given the choice between losing their jobs and joining the interim employment company. NSN gave no indication of the contractual implications of joining the interim company, or whether employees would have to take a pay cut.

NSN said that the offer had been negotiated last month with worker’s union IG Metall, and that the parties had agreed that NSN could only move jobs to the interim company if the majority of employees accepted the move.

Herbert Merz, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Nokia Siemens Networks in Germany, said the outcome was a good one for NSN and its employees. "This enables the company to reach its restructuring objectives ahead of schedule in Munich, providing greater planning certainty," he said. "It provides a good and socially acceptable solution for employees affected by the restructuring, and means that those employees staying with the company will not need to relocate from Munich."

NSN is on a broad, worldwide restructuring drive which will see it lose 17,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its workforce, over the next two years in an effort to save $1 billion.

Announcing the cuts in November last year, NSN CEO Rajeev Suri said: "These planned reductions are regrettable but necessary – and it is our goal to make them in a fair and responsible way, providing the support we can to employees and communities."